GonVisor is another versatile software that combines the functionality of an image viewer with ebook and comic book format reading capabilities and management functionality.

The program is offered as a portable version and setup on the developer website. One of the main program features is its support for a wide variety of files. GonVisor supports all major image formats, comic book reader files such as cbr, cbz or cba, pdf files, and compressed files containing images.

You are staring at a blank application window on startup, only the navigational menu at the top is visible. You can load files into the viewer in numerous ways, from dragging and dropping them into the program interface to using the File menu or associating the reader with specific formats so that you can double-click the files in Windows Explorer.

You will then see the first image displayed in the program, a self-retracting tools menu on the left, and a file selector on the right.

You can now use the back and forward button, the file selector, hotkeys, or the automatic slideshow to navigate between pages. Various tools improve the overall reading experience, from maximizing the page in the viewer over rotating images and displaying two pages next to each other, to zooming in or out or using the built-in magnifier. Pages can be bookmarked to continue at the page at a later time.

Some features, like color correction or the creation of comic book archive files require additional files that are not provided with the portable version. It is not clear if those files are included in the setup version of GonVisor. The main issue here is that there is no documentation where to get these files and where to place them.

GonVisor’s rich feature set it apart from other comic book readers. The lack of proper documentation is what pulls it down again. If you are looking for a comic book reader with management features, then GonVisor may be the program you are looking for.

Image Tools, an extension for the Firefox web browser, improves this by adding several new features to the Firefox image viewer.

The add-on integrates seamlessly in the browser, adding new items to the right-click context menu and the single image viewer.

The new context menu options can be used to view all standard images on the active page, all images or all linked images.

The extension opens all images that match the selection in a new tab in the browser. The View Image functionality has been revamped and replaced with an image viewer supporting image manipulation and browsing.

Images can be zoomed directly with the mouse-wheel, the remaining features are accessible via the image toolbar at the bottom of the page or keyboard shortcuts.

The left and right arrow keys on the keyboard, and in the image toolbar, can be used to load and display the next or previous image of the page on the screen. A downloading progress bar is displayed if the loading takes longer than a second.

Other tools include rotating the image by 90 degrees to the left or right, to display the original size of the image in the image viewer, to fit the image to the browser window, and to save, edit or copy the image.

Most features are accessible via keyboard shortcuts, the W and S keys for instance are used to zoom in and out, the A and D keys flip through the images and Ctlr-S is used to save the image to the local computer. It is furthermore possible to drag images to other applications by holding CTRL.

Copying the image moves a copy of it to the clipboard of the computer, editing links to the online image editing service Pixlr.com. Use of the service requires no registration.

The Firefox add-on works best on pages that link directly to the large version of the image. Examples of such pages are Google Images, 4Chan and many forums and blogs that post a lot of image thumbnails that link to the original image. The add-on, at least the image browsing part of it, does not work if the image thumbnails on a page are linked to a HTML page that shows the original image. Examples of non-working sites are Bing Images or Deviantart.

It is however still possible to view individual images with the ImageTools image viewer. Image Tools is compatible with all Firefox releases from 3.6 on including Firefox 4. Firefox users can install the Image Tools add-on directly at the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

FastPictureViewer Professional has that speedy edge that makes it the faster solution on computer systems of all speeds and sizes. This may not be obvious when opening 100 Kb photos or images on the system, but definitely when you are working with RAW images or large photos that exceed the Megabyte mark.

But FastPictureviewer Professional is not just an image viewer. It has been primarily designed to aid photographers improve their workflows. Culling plays an important part in the workflow for instance, which is the initial selection of photos to keep and photos to trash or archive. Imagine having to analyse hundreds of 25 Megabyte RAW images on a computer system. A fast and optimized photo viewer can speed up the workflow tremendously.

Alex Rietschin, the developer of FastPictureViewer Professional, mentioned that his program has been designed for four main purposes:

• help quickly review many images efficiently (check overall composition, exposure, sharpness…).
• allow the user to rate and label images according to their subjective “value” (or flag them for deletion).
• copy, move or delete photos, one by one or in batch, according to the given rating or other criteria.
• quickly export web-ready small or medium size JPEG copies of some or all of the photos.

For that, the software program offers professional color managed solution with profiled monitor support, efficient computer resource usage and support of technologies like gpu acceleration or multiprocessing) and optimized interface with keyboard shortcut support for core functions.

Unlike other image viewers, FastPictureViewer displays four transparent floating windows in the picture viewer interface. They are the XMP Metadata window which shows XMP rating, label and urgency, a RGB Histogram window, an external program launcher window and the EXIF Metadata window which displays shutter speed, aperture, dates and more.

The floating windows can be hidden easily by right-clicking on their interface and selecting to hide them. The final element on the screen is the taskbar, which can be hidden as well by pressing F12 to use all of the screen space on the monitor. Another handy shortcut is the F10 key which hides or shows all floating windows at once. Window positions are automatically saved and restored between sessions. One interesting feature is the ability to move the floating windows out of the program window. This is handy for users with multi-monitor setups for instance as it is now possible to view the main interface on one monitor and the floating windows on another.

The taskbar holds access to several important features. A right-click on the taskbar displays a menu with options and their corresponding keyboard shortcuts.

Here it is possible as well to hide or show floating windows, including a View Filter window that is not displayed by default on the screen.

The options on top of the menu require additional explanation.

• Publish, allows to mark images for web publishing or ftp publishing. The module has not been fully integrated yet, but the information can already be used in batch processing the images. Images can be marked for publication by pressing P.
• Batch Delete, will process all images that have been marked for deletion. Images are marked for deletion by pressing X, and the batch delete command can be accessed from the menu or by pressing Ctrl-X.
• Quick Bookmarks offers to bookmark images to open it quickly at a later time.
• Plug-ins, the program can be extended with plugins. A powerful plugin already included is the FastPictureviewer File Utilities plugin which supports rule based processing of images. This is a very powerful plugin, interested users can find out more about it here.

As an example, let’s say we are at the end of a long review session during which we viewed and rated thousands of images. Now we want to copy all files that were given a 5 stars rating to a folder, say D:\Images\Keepers\5-Stars.

The plugin can do exactly that.

• Rename is another powerful renaming tool that supports templates. The file renaming section at the FastPictureviewer website offers a tutorial on the module.

Those are just some of the features of FastPictureViewer Professional. It offers many additional features like a tracking mode where the program monitors an image folder to always display the latest created image stored in that folder on the screen or a tethered mode which can be used to display images directly from the digital camera. Everything has been designed to improve the workflow of photographers, and it does not really matter if they are professionals or amateurs.

Another handy feature is the external editors window which can link to external applications so that images can be send to those editors easily.

The best option for new users of FastPictureViewer Professional is to take a look at the getting started guide on the official homepage. It is lengthy but covers the basics and offers lots of tips on how to work with the program.

FastPictureViewer Professional is at its core a very fast image viewer. If you look deeper you find a professional tool for photographers, editors and photo enthusiasts to manage images on the computer system. The software is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

FastPictureViewer Professional Video

FastPictureViewer – Part 1: Introduction from fpvpro on Vimeo.

FastPictureViewer Professional Giveaway

Axel was nice enough to provide us with 20 FastPictureViewer Professional licenses. Please let us know what you’d like to do with the program in the comments for a chance to win one of the licenses. Interested users can download a fully working trial version of the program at the developer site.

JPEG View is a free Open source alternative. It can, despite its name open several image formats including JPEG, PNG, TIFF or Gif. The photo viewer sports a minimalistic design that hides most features under the surface. The program displays a file browser on startup to pick a single image or folder for viewing.

Most users may want to assign the supported image extensions to JPEG View so that a double-click on an image launches the image viewer directly. The portable software has no options to associated the file extensions with the program automatically, which means users have to make use of Windows to associated the file extensions with the program.

jpeg view

JPEG View displays the selected picture and a set of basic controls once an image has been loaded. The controls at the bottom disappear after some time, and offer standard functionality like rotating the image, loading the next or previous image, loading the first or last image of the folder, displaying EXIF information or switching to windowed or full screen mode.

A right-click displays all available options, and boy, there are lots of them.

image viewer

From batch renaming and copying images, to setting the modification date, displaying various image related information on screen, to enabling auto correction, local density correction, and viewing a slideshow of all images in a folder.

The application loads the images fast. We tested the speed by loading four to five Megabyte images from a test folder and they displayed more or less instantly on our test system.

The only negative aspect is how the settings are changed. The program uses ini files for the settings, and the preferences are changed by editing the ini files manually. That is not the most user friendly way, and might keep inexperienced users away.

Advanced users on the other hand can tweak the image viewer to their liking, from changing the color saturation, sharpening or default color balance, to switching to a windowed startup mode, changing cpu cores usage and the quality of the down sampling filter.

JPEG View is a very fast, and feature rich image viewer for the Windows operating system. The Open Source tool is completely portable, and available for download at the Sourceforge project website.

The image viewer is available in several editions including a portable version and an installer. It supports multiple languages and is completely free for personal use. The main interface of the software looks a bit cluttered and very colorful at first glance. Especially the two icon bars at the top of the window can cause some confusion at the beginning. It is possible to make changes to the skin but not the the interface itself. The designs itself looks professionally done and the three program windows for browsing folders, previewing images and thumbnails are intuitive to use after all.

A click on a thumbnail image will display a larger preview of that image in the preview window in the left sidebar. A left-click in that preview window will zoom in on the image. It is even possible to move around with the mouse as long as the left mouse button is pressed.

FastStone Image Viewer comes with an assortment of image editing tools. Not as much as image editing software programs like Paint.net, Gimp or even Adobe Photoshop offer but enough to perform the most common image editing operations like resizing, rotating, cropping, changing colors, brightness or contrasts or removing red eye effects.

There are also options to perform batch operations like converting or resizing multiple image formats at once. A handful of other interesting modules are available that include the ability to create slideshows, remove JPEG metadata, change timestamps or compare images. The program supports file tagging and is a solid program for these kinds of tasks.

FastStone Image Viewer 4.0 is a fast comfortable image viewer that can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Fast Picture Viewer Professional was primarily designed for photographers, designer and editors to aid them in their daily work but its core functionality makes it interesting for most computer owners as well. As the name suggests the application is a fast picture viewer with a low memory footprint. Here is but one example for that.

A 2.17 Megabyte jpg image that is loaded into Fast Picture Viewer uses 9.6 Megabytes of computer memory and 12.6 Megabytes of virtual memory. The very same image makes XNView use 48.5 Megabytes of computer memory and 44.6 Megabytes of virtual memory.

The image file formats compatibility page lists the file formats that are currently supported by Fast Picture Viewer. It does make use of the Windows Imaging Component to ensure maximum file format compatibility.

There are a few basic groups that Fast Picture Viewer aims at:

Professional Photographers

• Full Color Management with Profiled Monitor Support
• Plug and Play Tethered Shooting
• Adobe XMP Rating, Microsoft Photo Rating
• Histogram and EXIF Info
• Color-Managed Raw Preview
• Sort on Date or GPS Time
• Watched Folder Mode

Imaging Professionals

• Unmatched Speed
• Browse 100,000′s
• Large Images Support
• Saved Bookmarks
• Multipage MTIFF Support
• Custom Monitor Profiles
• One Key Accept/Reject/Copy
• Deep Subfolder Browsing

And of course the home user who wants a fast reliable image viewer for the images on his computer.

The program’s options contain several features that have to be enabled before they can be used. This includes one-key rating of images, single-keystroke labeling, multi-core support or how file operations like copying or moving are handled.

You will discover interesting and useful new functions all the time at the beginning. A click on the image count of the folder in the lower right corner will for instance display a slider that can be used to jump directly to another image with just two clicks of the mouse button.

Another example is the folder tracking feature which automatically scans selected folders – and subfolders – for new images displaying them as soon as they become available.

Fast Picture Viewer Professional is one of the fastest image viewers out there. Combined with its low memory footprint and professional features it is currently one of the best image viewers that is available for the Windows platform.

To get your copy head straight over to the download section and download the software. Then register the software with the following information. (Make sure to put the key in one line)

username: gHacks.net
key: LPmFPNAcSb4If92TCNGny9qrqLjGfRhz1=qf4C9F4qF=fiW+9SQP10zW9TJpewmPgzTKs8kYNEXb8lAly3fG

The key can be used to register the software so that it becomes the Pro version. This is working from Sunday 10:00 UTC to Monday 10:00 UTC.

So hurry up and let the software developer know what you think of his software.

Format plugins will add support for image formats that are not included in the main release. About 35 image format plugins can be downloaded from that page. Most of them are exotic formats like jng, wic or bmf which most users probably never heard before.

The plugins can be downloaded separately or as a plugin pack and have to be unpacked into the XnView plugin directory where they will be automatically recognized by the image viewer.

Add-ons on the other hand add support for external services like Imageshack, Nero, archive or ftp support. It usually means sending pictures to another application or adding new functions in XnView like viewing images in archives or adding basic image editing support.

The add-ons and format plugins add new features and functions to XnView which could be interesting for some users.

Importing new photos into the application can be done easily. The user can use the navigation pane on the top left side of the application to select folders that contain images from his hard drive or use the Import function to pick folders that way. Photos that get imported are automatically categorized and sorted. It is for example possible to browse the photos by year after importing them.

Some categories like the rating category are empty at the beginning and will be filled when the user begins rating photos in the library. One interesting category is to view the images by equipment model which would be really great for photographers who use different equipment for different purposes.

Other options include to view photos by copyright holders, software, exposure time, flash and about a dozen more categories.

Images can be viewed as thumbnails, image strips, slideshows, single images, flip-book like or on a map that is showing their geographic location. This photo software has so many functions that it is hard to keep an overview over all of them.

One feature that is missing are those basic image editing functions that most other image viewers posses. It is not possible to resize an image and save it on the computer afterwards.

Pictomio raises the bar for other image viewers with its beautiful interface and image viewing functions. It does lack behind in image editing options and suffers a little bit from the amount of functions and features the developers have packed into the interface.

There is another drawback. Beauty has its price and users who like Pictomio simply because of its looks will have to cope with a much higher computer memory consumption as in related image viewers.

Pictomia is available for Windows XP and Windows Vista in version 1.0 and as technology preview version 1.1 which includes the Pictgeo software add-on which adds geotagging to the photo viewer.

The author Axel was so nice to send me registration keys for his software program that can be used to turn the free version into the professional version. The professional version supports additional file types which was my only criticism in the previous review.

If you want to grab a registration key for Fast Picture Viewer reply in here with a comment and I send them to anyone who is commenting as long as I have some. The keys are good for one machine only and require activation over the Internet.

That’s a great chance of getting the fastest image viewer out there for free. What are you waiting for?

Update: Keys are out! I send out lots of them and hope everyone who received one has a good experience and writes about it here or directly to the author.

There was virtually no delay when viewing those images which I have always experienced before. Each image viewer that I tried had a small delay when displaying those large 4 Megabyte+ images.

Startup is very quick as well. Fast Picture Viewer comes with a slick design and runs on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and most likely Windows Server 2008 as well.

While designed with speed in mind Fast Picture Viewer has several additional interesting features that make it stick out of the crowd of image viewers. The basics first. Users can integrate the software program in the shell, make it the default image viewer for file types and load files directly from within the interface.

The mouse wheel scrolls the images of the directory forward or backward and a click zooms into the image. Several keyboard shortcuts are available for mouse-less navigation. It has a Keep / Copy Folder function that provides a great method of copying selected images to that folder with just the keyboard.

The software program supports both Adobe XMP and Windows Vista metadata creation and update which fuels a rating feature where users can rate images on the fly.

The only thing that might keep someone from using Fast Picture Viewer is its lack of support of image formats. The free for personal use edition supports the JPEG format (*.jpeg, *.jpg, *.jpe, *.jfif, *.exif) and Microsoft HD Photo (*.hdp, *.wdp) / JPEG-XR while the professional version adds support for other common file types like png, tiff, bmp and RAW format previewing and is sold for $29.99 which is a reasonable price for such a fast software.

Another point of criticism could be that it concentrates solely on image viewing and that it does not offer image organizing or editing features. I do not need and miss those features on the other hand but some users might.

A click on an image loads an image viewer that resembles normal image viewers. Images can be dragged and dropped between folders and in a casket that can contain images from all folders. The casket is a virtual folder that can be used to create a custom slideshow for instance. Images can not only be imported from the local computer but also from Flickr. Images that are displayed can also be uploaded to Flickr.

The size of the thumbnails in the boards can be changed from tiny to a size that only displays one image at a time. Boards can be viewed separately as well. Twin Visions does not only offer image viewing functions but also image editing and sharing functions.

The image editor is not comparable to Photoshop or GIMP but it does offer a few quick fixes. It’s possible to remove noise, the red eye effect or fix the brightness with a mouse click. Effects can be added like blur or color effects. The current beta version will stop working on October 1st, 2008 and it is very likely that this could become a commercial software.

It comes with all the features that I need, it can resize images, change formats, display and create thumbnails, batch convert images and all the standard functions of an image viewer like zooming, fullscreen, color changing and the like. The most popular image formats are supported and many functions and features can be enabled and changed in the options.

My first change for instance was to add the next and previous image navigation to the mouse wheel. You can really configure the software the way you like it. It might take a while to add and remove functions from the toolbars and set all shortcuts the way you want them but once that is done you have the fastest image viewer currently available at your disposal.

Imagine did replace Xnview on my system. , the image viewer that I have used for the last year.

If you hang out at these sites you should definitely consider trying and using Piclens to enhance your viewing experience. Piclens adds a little ‘play’ icon in the lower left corner of every image which starts the full screen image viewer showing the selected image in full screen mode.

It is then possible to navigate the images using your mouse or the cursor keys. A slideshow has been implemented as well which displays all images one after the other.

A click on the > icon in the top left corner loads the website the image is hosted on which could be different from the website that you started Piclens with.

Piclens supports multi-page search results when you use it to view images at Google Images or Yahoo images. Basically a way to browse all pictures at once without the need to click to load the next batch of results.

Read More:

Piclens Homepage

Just right-click the link and select the application that you want to use to view it from the menu. Launchy, that is the name of the Firefox add-on, supports more than 60 applications right out of the box with the ability to add more applications using an XML file.

It is possible to disable programs that have been found and are selectable in the right-click menu.

If you for instance want to view the source you have the option to use Ultraedit, Notepad, Open Office or Wordpad which is pure overkill. It is convenient to remove all but one program unless you really use more than one source viewer.

I personally can see two great applications for Launchy. The first is for webmasters who like to test websites in several browsers. The second is for users who would like to open media files in external applications and for users who like to send images right into their image editing software.

Has most of the features that programs like irfanview have, like thumbnailed view, manipulate settings like brightness and size, flip images and adjust colors. Best of all, its free and fast to use. An alternative to irfanview and xnview.

Update: The Forcevision Image Viewer is no longer available. The developer website has been discontinued and it is likely that the developers have stopped development some time ago. Windows users looking for an alternative image viewer should take a closer look at the excellent XnView.

XnView supports hundreds of different image formats. Even better: The developers release new versions regulary, and it is not only available for the Windows operating system but also for Linux, Mac OSX and various smartphones.

XnView is available here on the developer website.

A second alternative is the Fast Picture Viewer which has been specifically designed for photographers. It is one of the fastest image viewers available. Support is great with support for more than 45 different image formats and more than 370 different camera models and their RAW formats.

Some of the advanced features for photographers and image editors and inspectors are IPTC Editor, RGB histogram, Color Management, EXIF, Tethered Shooting and ultrafast Raw previewing.

Fast Picture Viewer is available as a 32-bit and 64-bit edition for the windows operating system. Windows users should download the cheat sheet in pdf format from the developer website to learn the ins and outs of the image viewer and rater.

Picmv Freeware Image Viewer

If you are looking for an image viewer with image management functions and you don’t want to spend money on it, Picmv is available from various websites. It is intended to work with digital cameras, but thumbnail images can be sorted through this image viewer as well. It handles large image archives with streamlined precision and rapid sorting according to different optional settings. Many different parameters can be specified, including the number of viewing times, colors, ratios and pixel number. For DSLR camera enthusiasts, this is definitely something to try out.

As with most freeware, numerous download mirror sites exist, but Softpedia is an excellent go-to for freeware in general. Downloads are almost always clean (this author has yet to find malware in any of them). The following link is recommended:

homepage

Depending on your operating system, you might have to sort through different mirrors to get a good download. If the download does not match the operating system, you end up with a GUI that has no clear indication of the different parameters. Picmv is surprisingly easy to use even though the interface looks like it will be a pain to navigate.

When you get used to it, you realize what a fine tool it is. It comes in a .zip file and there is a readme text that is just about useless. Nonetheless, with a little experimentation, it is fairly easy to learn. After several attempts to find an instructional manual or tutorial, it was realized that any such thing must be obscure because it did not show up on 10 different searches. You might find one anyway.
Features

Picmv copies images shot with digital cameras to specified directories. Send the images to any file location or create a new file in a location of choice. Insert the camera’s memory card into your computer or adaptor and all images are instantly downloaded to the directory that was indicated by clicking the “Execute” button in the bottom pane. It is a good idea to name the directory file based on the photographing date found on the Exif header. Define any naming rules that you see fit for the collection. Optional extensions do accept JPG files. When a multi-memory card reader is used, two or more directories can be named. The memory card is ejected automatically as a default after extraction. You can rotate the image just like any other image editor. Graphical progress display is performed using OpenGL during copy.

This is a fine utility for creating slideshows of photos and JPG images as well as thumbnails (yes, thumbnail slideshows can actually be interesting). Be sure that you use the original name of the file or rename the file before executing. Also, enter the Naming Rules correctly according to the date and time listed on the DCIM filename. If you make even the slightest error on this, nothing will be copied.

If the copy to the destination folder is successful, the memory card will be ejected and you will see a display like this:

Success! This was a slideshow created from a series of photos and it now rests neatly in a desktop folder. Enjoy!